Dingleberry, the day I posted against your vaunted hero, Jim Beyer, you have had nothing but antipathy for me. You stated then that this was the turning point for you in your thinking about me. And since then, there is no thread we both participate on in which you don't make that antipathy clear. It doesn't matter what I say or how I say it, you'll come up with a way to dig at it.

My point in this case is crystal clear, and your intentional refusal to grant it just further makes the point of the above paragraph. I find it frustrating to honestly attempt to engage the ISSUES with somebody who so obviously only finds pleasure in forum drive-by shootings aimed more or less in the direction (your aim is pretty bad) of somebody he doesn't like.

It's been years of this, and finally you have convinced me that the feeling of antipathy should be mutual. Unlike you, however, I'll now respond by just ignoring your further "contributions" as the irrelevancies that they are.

Nope, not confused. I can look it up, if it was worth the time, which it's not. I called Intifada for what it was, and you hopped on and started bagging on me about how disingenuous of me it was to discredit a climb by such a great climber, particularly when I had experienced being discredited myself. I responded that I was discredited on the basis of lies by people who had not climbed the route, while I had climbed and documented Intifada. And your response was that you had previously felt like I had gotten a raw deal in the climbing community, but that after my "attacks" on Jim Beyer, your opinion of me had completely changed.

Like your inability to differentiate among principles in discussions like this very thread, your inability to differentiate between legitimate route criticism and flat-out defamation is the real root of the problem in your long-term dislike of me, at least as you stated it.

Regardless of the reasons you NOW feel that you have, I'm done trying to engage with you in honest fashion, because you are not intellectually honest.

Gary relentlessly posts every new tidbit of gun idiocy he can find in the news.

I respond with a well-known study and call for a more balanced perspective, noting that the idiots are in the tiny, tiny minority of gun owners.

Brandon responds that the statistics in the well-known study are wrong (no duh), but posts an article that is itself witheringly biased and that flagrantly misrepresents the statistics and studies it trots out to rip the well-known study.

I point out that statistics (clearly meaning the INTERPRETATION) of them is always "incorrect" (per Brandon), as interpretations are always bias-laden, even among "careful" practitioners. Put interpretation in a loaded/heated context like gun-control, and Twain's comment is spot on!

I summarize that the principles at issue in this discussion are not touched by, nor will their defenders fall to, heavily-interpreted statistics. And I urge wannabe legislators to remember prohibition, where an otherwise law-abiding class of people were suddenly MADE into criminals, and that for violating NO rights of others.

To expound upon prohibition, this overnight class of "criminals" were criminalized using the exact same tactics now employed by gun-control wannabes: Trot out statistics regarding the EFFECTS of the substance it was proposed to make illegal, thereby failing to properly penalize the ABUSERS of the substance and instead going after the mere POSSESSORS (and makers) of the substance. Overnight, people who were doing nothing wrong were suddenly criminals. And overnight the stage was set for gangland America as we now know it. And the legislators, never learning anything from history, make the same mistakes regarding drugs. And the wannabes, learning nothing from history, now want to make the same mistakes regarding guns.

Remember prohibition, and give up on these endless and fruitless "wars on ___" that only create "criminals" and black markets.

I've said before, and I'll repeat: You want reasonable legislation designed to better keep guns out of the hands of already-convicted, VIOLENT felons, and you'll have no fight from me (although I continue to believe that this is a state's rights issue that the feds have no actual constitutional right to engage in). Even on the subject of letting the feds handle things like background checks (that are not stored indefinitely, but that are point-in-time "yay or nay" decisions), you'll get no fight from me.

But pointing out that sometimes idiots do idiotic things with their guns is going nowhere. Idiots do idiotic things with all sorts of things, and that has zero bearing on gun rights, anymore than idiots driving idiotically and killing people with their cars has any bearing on the right to transportation.

I'm leery of the feds doing it, but (sigh) there is really no alternative. But the only way I'm supporting it is if it's literally point-in-time and then discarded. As in Colorado, there can be no stored records of background checks by the authorities. The checks are done, the results go to the seller, and the sale is accordingly consummated or not.

With the feds record of information management, I do worry about such a system turning into a full-blown federal gun registry. And the idea that they are going to abide by the law, even if the law precluded them from keeping such records regarding the background checks (think NSA), at least they would indeed be violating the LAW (hmmm... much like the criminals they are keeping guns out of the hands of).

Thank you, Jonnyrig. And by "support" I don't mean passive. If the right sort of legislation went before Congress, I would actively write my congresscritters urging them to support it, even though I do dislike the feds handling it. The states just are not going to engage in the sort of coordination it would take to make background checks sweeping enough.

I have never proposed any outright "ban" on guns of any type, nor do I have such a ban as any ultimate hidden agenda. I fully support an individual right to buy, own and carry appropriate arms for self-defense in the home or in public places. With all rights come responsibilities, and existing laws have utterly failed to hold gun owners and dealers responsible for the consequences of their actions. Many constitutional laws could be implemented that would preserve and protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners, while reducing unnecessary accidents and making it more difficult for criminals to get, carry and use guns.

There is no constitutional right to sell firearms to criminals. There is no constitutional right for firearm dealers to keep sloppy records. There is no constitutional right to leave a loaded firearm visible on the seat of an unlocked parked car. There is no constitutional right to leave loaded weapons within reach of unattended children.

You can have your philosophical right to the means of armed rebellion against perceived threats to intangible rights, but the moment someone steps into a public place with a loaded military firearm, they should be considered to have expressed the intention to subvert my (semi-)democratically elected government, and should be dealt with accordingly.